I ducked back into the hole. The Predator controller was about to drop his bombs. I hustled down and grabbed Hila. I moved her higher across the dirt mound and toward our escape hole. I shifted around to try to shield her from the blast, then took two long breaths and listened for the first impact.
THIRTY
I tucked in as tightly as I could, and the next few seconds felt like a lifetime.
For a moment, I thought the controller had changed his mind or been ordered to abort.
But then, just as my doubts were beginning to take root, twin detonations, somewhat muffled at first, originated from behind us, well off into the basement. Not three heartbeats later came a roar unlike anything I’d ever heard, followed by a massive tremor ripping through the ground.
As the earthquake continued, a wave of intense heat pushed through the tunnel behind me, and I gasped and started dragging Hila higher toward the hole, fearing that all the air would be consumed before we escaped. That I moved farther up was the only thing that saved us from a wave of fire that rushed through the pipe. I kept groaning and dragging her higher, my boots slipping on the dirt, as dozens of smaller explosions began to boom, and I knew that was all the ammunition beginning to cook off. Then came a horrible stench as the opium began to burn. My eyes filled with tears, and for a few seconds I thought I’d pass out before someone grabbed my arm and began pulling me up.
There was screaming, but I couldn’t identify anyone above the cracking and booming from below, as well as more booming from the village as I was suddenly hoisted out of the hole and plopped down in the sand.
I blinked hard, saw Brown and Smith there, with Brown digging back into the hole and pulling out Hila. He was wearing the Cross-Com I’d given to Ramirez.
Behind us, the helicopters were still engaging the Taliban fighters on the ground, but most of them were retreating back toward the walls.
However, at least one machine gunner set up behind a jingle truck opened fire, and we all hit the deck a moment before the Apache gunship whirled around and directed a massive barrage of fire that not only tore through the gunner but began to shred the truck itself.
“I’ve got her,” yelled Smith, scooping up Hila and gesturing toward the mountainside. “The tunnel’s up there! Let’s go!”
Brown pulled me back up. “We locked onto your chip as soon as you got close to the top. You okay?”
“More than okay. I got Zahed.”
Brown was all pearly whites. “Hoo-ah! Mission complete, baby. Let’s roll!”
The three of us ran back toward the hills, with the choppers covering our exit. Brown was in direct contact with them, and he said that he’d sent the others off toward two rifle squads that had come up through the defile. They were bringing back one Bradley to pick up the girls. We took a tunnel I hadn’t seen before, which Brown said led up to one of the mountain passes.
As we neared the exit and emerged onto the dirt road, we looked down toward Senjaray and saw the Bradley pulling away. The girls we’d rescued were, I later learned, safely onboard.
We were almost home.
“Hold up,” I said, as we crossed around some boulders. We squatted down. “We need to get her out of here faster than this.” I looked to Brown. “Can we get a Blackhawk to pick her up?”
“I’m on it. But we’ll still have to get down to the valley over there.”
“All right.” I dug into my pocket, switched on my satellite phone, and saw there was a message from General Keating. I took a deep breath, dialed, and listened.
And my heart sank.
“I repeat, son, we need to pull you off this mission. Abort. Abort. Stand down…”
He’d said a lot more than that, but those were the only words that meant anything. Bronco hadn’t been bluffing.
At that moment, though, I was glad I hadn’t heard the message, but I wondered whether I would’ve shot Zahed anyway, despite the order to stand down.
I wondered.
I’d like to think that my experience and honor would’ve led me to make the right decision. But the politics and grim reality were far too powerful to ignore.
“Captain, you don’t look so good,” said Smith.
“The order to stand down came in, but I, uh, I guess I missed it. Zahed’s dead anyway.”
“Good work,” said Brown.
“Ghost Lead, this is Hume, over.”
“Go ahead, John.”
“Jenkins and I got on the Bradley, but we got cut off from Warris and Ramirez in the tunnels. We figured they’d link up with us down here, but they didn’t show up, over.”
“Roger that, we’ll find them.”
“Paul, you get her down there to link up with the chopper?” Brown asked Smith.
“I’m on it.”
“Then I’m with you, Captain, let’s go!”
We rose and jogged off, back into the tunnel, while Smith carried Hila toward the valley.
“I’m afraid of what we’ll find,” said Brown.
We linked up with another section of tunnels, ones we’d already marked with beacons, and we stepped over four or five bodies of Taliban fighters.
Brown and I spent nearly an hour combing the tunnels. No tracker chips were detected during those moments when I’d slip outside to search for a signal, so we had to assume both men were still underground.
Sighing in disgust, I told Brown we needed to get back and see if we couldn’t get a search team in the tunnels by morning.
“You think they got captured?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I told him. “But we can’t stay up here all night.”
We hiked down from the mountains and toward the village. The firing had all but stopped, and the gunships had already pulled out and were heading toward Kandahar.
As Brown and I reached the defile, we were met by a horrible sight:
Anderson and Harruck were standing in the smoking ruins of the school, shattered by Taliban mortar fire. The once tall walls of the police station, whose roof was about to be constructed, looked like jagged teeth now, with more smoke coiling up into the night sky.
Anderson was crying. Harruck glared and cried, “Thanks a lot for all your help!”
Fifteen minutes later I was getting my gunshot wound treated. All the girls had been taken back to the hospital as well, and they were all staring at me, as if to say thank you. Hila had been rushed into surgery.
I was patting my fresh bandage when Brown came running into the hut and cried, “Captain! Get out here! You’re not going to believe this!”
I rushed away from the nurse and made it outside, where Warris was being helped out of a Hummer. He was ragged and filthy and still reeked. His eyes were bloodshot and he just looked at me vaguely as I rushed up to him.
“Fred, where the hell were you?”
It took a few seconds for him to focus on me. “They found me down in the valley.”
“Where’s Ramirez?”
He swallowed. “I, uh, I don’t know.”
I raised my voice. “What do you mean?”
“I MEAN, I DON’T KNOW! NOW GET OUT OF MY GODDAMNED FACE!” He shoved me aside and headed toward the hospital.
I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “You’re going to talk right now.”
“I’ll talk, all right. No worries about that!”
“Where’s Ramirez?”
“We got separated. I don’t know what happened. I looked for him, and he was gone. That’s all I know.”
“Where is he?”
He glared at me, then turned and walked away. I started after him, but Brown grabbed my shoulder. “Don’t…”
I talked to one of the doctors, who told me Hila would pull through just fine. They’d removed the bullet. The doc did take me aside and tell me she’d found evidence of rape on all the girls. I explained the situation, and she said, as I already knew, that none of the families would want these girls back, and if we revealed what had happened to them, their fates could take an even sharper turn for the worse.